Two weeks ago, Ottawa’s Carleton University removed weight scales from its campus fitness centre. When the move became public last week, it sparked a backlash online that accused the university’s recreation and athletics department of being hyper-sensitive.

There are persistent reports from Carleton that the scales were taken out because some students complained stepping on them was “very triggering” emotionally for people with eating disorders and others struggling to be comfortable with their physiques.

The athletics department insists it was not cratering to pressure from politically correct activists who have lately insisted that concentrating on weight is a form of “body shaming.”

But the explanation from Carleton’s wellness program, the branch of the athletics department that runs the rec facility, isn’t any better than an admission its brains are soaked through with PC thinking.

“Gym-goers need to measure the things that are more valuable than weight,” explained an athletics department spokesperson. “Esteem, safety, love, and belonging are so much more important to scale. Some of us may want to lose pounds or run an extra mile, but that’s nothing compared to seeing how close you are to self-actualization.”

I remember one time at a carnival connected to a rodeo seeing a grip-o-meter that claimed the harder you squeezed, the better lover you were. Other than that, though, I don’t think there is actually any such thing as a “love scale.” (Or for that matter an esteem scale, a safety scale or a “belonging” scale.”)

It’s not at all hard to believe that administrators who think we should measure our fitness goals in gigahugs and kiloconfidences would take scales out of a public gym out of fear someone might suffer a self-esteem meltdown by stepping on one.

As several Carleton students pointed out, “What’s next, removing the mirrors?”

Actually, the mirrors would have been a more logical first step. They are always “on” and cannot be avoided, unlike a scale that you actually have to step on yourself.

And for that matter, why not blindfolds? Aren’t there sensitive students who are worried that everyone is staring at them because they don’t have what you would call a stereotypical gym body?

How dare you judge me with your gaze!

The truth is we live in the Age of Hypersensitivity, the Era of Instant Outrage. If I say you have offended ME, then you are guilty of violating MY human rights.

Another prime example: This week federal NDP leadership candidate Niki Ashton, the MP for Churchill—Keewatinook Aski (which takes up the northern two-thirds of Manitoba), hastily removed a Facebook post in which she had quoted lyrics from a Beyonce Knowles song.

Ashton, a proudly far-left MP, said on social media that she was running to replace Thomas Mulcair so she could take the party “to the left, to the left,” a line Ashton acknowledged came from Knowles’ 2006 single “Irreplaceable.”

But Black Lives Matter’s Vancouver chapter accused Ashton of “cultural appropriation,” i.e. a form of racism in which members of one race (typically white) steal art forms, cultural expressions or even just fashion trends from another race (typically non-white).

Frankly, this is the logical endpoint of diversity campaigns and other official forms of political correctness.

Some people become so obsessed by gender, racial or sexual identity that they insist on being defined by what sets them apart rather than by what they have in common with everyone else.

To make matters worse, they then insist that our culture and institutions be remade to reward and celebrate those differences.

In this way, “inclusivity” has become a tool for the exact opposite – for permanent fracturing and perpetual division.

As Advertised in the Calgary SUN

gunter

The era of instant outrage brings perpetual division

Two weeks ago, Ottawa’s Carleton University removed weight scales from its campus fitness centre. When the move became public last week, it sparked a backlash online that accused the university’s recreation and athletics department of being hyper-sensitive.

There are persistent reports from Carleton that the scales were taken out because some students complained stepping on them was “very triggering” emotionally for people with eating disorders and others struggling to be comfortable with their physiques.

The athletics department insists it was not cratering to pressure from politically correct activists who have lately insisted that concentrating on weight is a form of “body shaming.”

But the explanation from Carleton’s wellness program, the branch of the athletics department that runs the rec facility, isn’t any better than an admission its brains are soaked through with PC thinking.